


The State of Grace

by LunaCatriona



Category: Grace and Frankie (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-10-11 21:57:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10475301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunaCatriona/pseuds/LunaCatriona
Summary: Grace Hanson can't sleep, and she needs to empty her head. And as always, just as she smooths one thing out, another spanner is thrown into the workings of her life.Trigger warning for mental health stuff.





	1. Soulmate

Grace Hanson was a quiet being.

Well, she wasn’t. She could be rude and obnoxious, and stubborn beyond all realms of reality. But her soul, her heart, kept quiet, under the guise of the racket that came out of her mouth.

Living with Frankie was an education. Frankie was expressive and open, and stubborn beyond all realms of reality. But she said what her heart said, what her soul said, where Grace could not. And Grace was a little jealous of that, she mused as she turned off the lamp and pulled the covers over her shoulders.

Despite that jealousy, and the limits to her patience for Frankie’s wild ways, Grace loved Frankie. Had someone said ten years ago that Grace Hanson would love Frankie Bergstein, they both would have laughed the offender out of the state, never mind out of the room. But it had happened. Somewhere in the mess of divorce, gay husbands, dysfunctional children, boyfriends, and heart attacks, Grace Hanson had grown to love Frankie Bergstein.

It was the most bizarre experience of Grace’s life.

Her love for Robert was at least rational, discounting the fact that forty years down the line, it came out he was gay and leaving her for someone else’s husband. But they weren’t so different, and she had loved him for being respectable, mainstream, and normal. For the life she could lead with him. For the sheer normality of him, even if he was an asshole at times.

But Frankie was about as normal as earless cocker spaniel. Eccentric, scatter-brained, and yet somehow the most intelligent woman Grace had ever met. Frankie was emotionally intelligent, something Grace could only long to be.

Grace turned the lamp back on, knowing she could not sleep without getting this out of her system. There had been a time she would have just shrugged it off and went to sleep anyway, but she was beginning to believe, even fear, that she was not that person anymore. Not to that extent. And if that was not who she was, then who was she now?

She sighed and sat up, swung her feet around and put on her slippers. Perhaps some herbal tea would make her sleepy enough for bed. It was after one in the morning, after all.

Padding down the stairs, she tried to make as little noise as possible; she did not want to wake Frankie, and she definitely did not want Frankie to wake thinking there was an intruder in their home.

Their home.

When did this become their home?

There were dirty dishes in the sink. “Frankie,” Grace groaned in resigned irritation. Her housemate had clearly had a snack before bed and neglected the washing up. She huffed slightly and put some water on to boil, and a teabag into a cup, before attending to the mess. She could only pray the whirring of the garbage disposal and the boiling of water didn’t wake Frankie. Chaos might ensue.

Sitting down on the sofa, she sipped her tea. It was still scalding hot and completely undrinkable. She placed the cup down and took in the contents of the coffee table. Two laptops, a phone charger, and a notebook and pen lay there, abandoned for the night. Just like Grace Hanson sat there, abandoned for the night.

Even as she actively looked for distractions, Grace’s mind returned to Frankie. How could she have come to love such a madwoman? How had she allowed herself to live with her in the first place? She could have easily got an apartment of her own, even demanded Robert house her somewhere else, but she had chosen to stay here, to share her abode with someone she had disliked for decades. When did forty years’ worth of pure dislike turn into love?

Grace put her head in her hands. Why couldn’t she get this off her mind? She felt like a mushy, useless mess. Sentiment wasn’t in her vocabulary. At least, it hadn’t been until she had met Frankie. She had never expected that she could ever envy that woman, but there was very little she wouldn’t have given to be as emotionally aware and open-hearted as Frankie Bergstein.

Her fingers drifted towards the notebook, then pen sitting primly on top of it. The pen between her fingers, she opened the book with the deepest of caution. She had never done this before. She had heard Sol suggest it to Brianna once, but Grace had scoffed at the ridiculous notion, as had her daughter.

But perhaps he had been right.

_I’m not like Frankie. I can’t say brave things. I’m a coward._

Grace paused, the top of the pen resting on her lip.

_This is her fault, you know. She’s made me love her. It’s like that song:_

_“You made me love you_  
_I didn’t want to do it_  
_I didn’t want to do it._ ”

_Not in a Robert and Sol way. God, no._

_Well, actually, sort of like them. Sol is Robert’s soulmate, and Robert is Sol’s. They can’t be without each other, and they need each other so much that they were willing to blow two marriages apart to be together._

_I’m starting to think that maybe I’d do the same for Frankie. If it came down to it, maybe I would do almost anything for Frankie. God knows I went for years hating that woman and now suddenly I love her? Have you any idea how confusing that is? How can I love her so intensely when two years ago, I would have run to the ends of the Earth to avoid her? Now I would go to the ends of the Earth for her._

_What if, after being married to Robert for forty years, he’s not really my soulmate? Okay, I already knew he’s not my soulmate. But I was happy enough with him. It wasn’t some whirlwind romance but it was okay. We lived and we were okay. It made sense, and it was normal, and it was everything I thought an ordinary life was meant to be._

_And what if, God forbid--_

She stopped. Oh, shit. This was why she had ignored the idea when Sol advocated it to Brianna. This was something she didn’t want to know. And yet, her hand fell to the page once more.

_\--Frankie Bergstein is my soulmate? Not a romantic soulmate, but a soulmate all the same. Isn’t your soulmate the person you simply cannot do without? Is it the person who counterbalances you until you’re both on steady ground?_

_I’ve already proven I can do perfectly well without Robert. That was never really in question, since he gave me no choice. Now I’m a little scared I’ve come across someone I cannot do without._

Grace stared at the page for a moment. She’d just poured her heart out onto a piece of paper. And somewhat terrifyingly, it felt amazing. Her feelings were real, tangible, right there in front of her. She could see them, and now they had somewhere to live, outside of her.

Her sigh now was not of frustration, but of relief. She could finally rest.

Now completely exhausted, she threw the notebook back onto the coffee table and picked up her tea. It was cool enough to drink quickly; she found she didn’t have the energy to go upstairs now. The cup went back onto the table. She lay down, stretched her legs…maybe she could just sleep here tonight.

* * *

 

Sunlight poured into the room, and it disturbed Grace’s slumber. “Ugh,” she grumbled, stirring but not opening her eyes. She wanted more sleep, and that was not at all like her. But then again, she had been writing the contents of her mind at two this morning.

Shit.

“Fuck!” she hissed out. Her eyes flew open. Everything was still sideways, for she had not sat upright yet, but she could see that the notebook was already replaced to the position it was in before she picked it up in the early hours of the morning. The cup was gone, and the surface of the coffee table had been put to rights. Groaning, she sat up and pulled the book towards her. She flicked through it, trying to find what she had written, but all she could find were addresses and phone numbers for takeout, scribbled down reference numbers for online purchases, and the occasional sketch or doodle of Frankie’s.

It was gone.

Grace looked up at the clock. At was half-past nine – even Frankie had to be up and about by now. She looked around her, and found that Frankie was out on the patio, sitting in a deck chair.

Her eyes closed, she stood up and made her way out of the house and into Frankie’s presence. She was sitting there with a piece of paper in her hands. Grace’s piece of paper. And it was Grace’s go-to emotion that rose within her.

“You had no right to take that,” she snapped at Frankie, whose head whipped around to look at her accuser.

“Well, you did leave it in a neutral area,” Frankie reasoned, in what she obviously thought was a rational tone of voice, but Grace heard that tiniest hint of defensiveness. “I didn’t exactly rifle through your underwear drawer for it.”

“No, but you saw whose handwriting it was!”

“I also saw my name! It piqued my interest. What can I say? I’m a curious cat.”

“Nobody ever tell you what happened to the cat that got _too_ curious?” Grace snapped, sitting down in the chair next to Frankie’s.

Frankie snorted. “You might think you’re scary, Grace Hanson, but I hold in my hands the evidence that proves you’re a big softie,” she smirked. “Is this really how you feel?” Frankie dared to ask.

Grace glared at her. “I wouldn’t have written it down if it weren’t.”

“Why did you write it down?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” grouched Grace, shifting awkwardly in her chair. “I felt too much to be able to sleep so I wrote it out of my system,” she gestured irritably to that infernal sheet of paper in Frankie’s hands. “Do you know what it’s like to go seventy years without feeling more than paper cuts and then suddenly not be able to _not feel_?”

With that Grace stood up, planning on a trip to the kitchen for some much-needed coffee. Or vodka.

Once in the kitchen, she deemed coffee too tame and got out the vodka and tomato juice. She was not going to have a conversation like this one sober.

“You wanna know why you’ve never felt anything of any magnitude?” Frankie called across the house, approaching quicker than Grace thought she was capable of. She swiped the vodka bottle out of Grace’s hand and waved it in front of her face. “This is why!”

“Bullshit,” scoffed Grace, grabbing for the bottle, but Frankie was faster.

“Paper cuts are nasty but they’re bearable,” Frankie said. “You don’t feel the flood because you drown yourself in dry vodka martinis!”

Grace sighed. She couldn’t even deny it. And she didn’t have to; she knew that Frankie knew exactly what she was feeling. Frankie looked past Grace’s anger and found the crippling fear and anxiety that real emotion brought her. But she didn’t say anything. Instead, Grace found herself in Frankie’s arms, being hugged so tightly that Grace worried her ribs might crack.

“If it makes you feel better, I love you, too,” Frankie told her quietly. “And I didn’t want to do it, either.” Grace closed her eyes and allowed herself, for only a moment, to sink into Frankie.

Before she could enjoy it too much, she released herself from Frankie’s embrace and went for the coffee. “You made me love you,” sang Frankie.

Grace rolled her eyes but nonetheless, she replied, “I didn’t want to do it.”

“I didn’t want to do it,” they sang together, giggling slightly. Grace playfully backhanded Frankie on the arm, but she didn’t stop smiling. Well, it was more a case of she couldn’t stop smiling.

Grace Hanson was a quiet being. Her soul didn’t know how to be loud. But thankfully, she had a soulmate who could be loud for her.


	2. Spinning

The world spun around her sometimes. She rarely ever let it show – not like Frankie would – but Grace Hanson did not know her place in the world anymore. She was a businesswoman who was only just getting back into business. She was a wife who no longer had a husband. She was a mother to two daughters who, as they had their own lives now, no longer needed regular mothering. She was a grandmother who lost her mind after about two hours of continuous interaction with her grandchildren. She was a friend who was just plain shit at being a friend.

Her circle had always been one of women who didn’t really care about one another, but spent time together because their husbands knew one another, or simply because they were too toffee-nosed to befriend someone who came from a different background, or had different ideas, no matter how much of an opportunity for meaningful friendship it might be. And in all of that, Grace had never really found the need to give much of a damn about anyone she called her friend. Sure, when their relatives died or their relationships broke down, she gave her condolences, but these friendships functioned on pointless and often vicious gossip, and a universal hatred of all that was alternatively beautiful about the world.

And these days, Grace didn’t even belong there. More to the point, she wasn’t willing to pretend she did.

Often she felt that she could have done without the rude awakening, especially when it came so late in life. It could all be traced back to the moment Robert left her; though she had mostly made her peace with that particular ordeal, she knew that more than one rug had been pulled from under her feet that night.

Not only did she lose her marriage, but she had lost all she had believed to be normal, and her place within that. Even now, nearly two years on, she struggled to slot into her role – after all, she didn’t know what her role was anymore.

And, on top of that, she had been landed with Frankie Bergstein. Now, that was something she could have done something about, and she would never quite understand why she chose to live with that nutjob.

But then she remembered that awful thing she had written, that she had been careless enough to leave lying within Frankie’s grasp. Could she have known, all that time ago, back in the days when she thought she might murder Frankie just for some peace and quiet, that this was a woman with whom she could forge a true bond?

Grace hated exploring her own soul. It was easier to ignore it and hurtle through life like it wasn’t there, regardless of who got knocked down in the process. Until she had knocked Frankie down. Or rather, until she had knocked Frankie down and, terrifyingly, cared about it.

Once upon a time, she would have carried on without another thought on the matter, but how could she do that when she cared about it? This caring business was more trouble than it was worth, Grace mused. And it was even harder not to care when she was sharing her space with Frankie, who cared about anything and everything that touched her life.

Grace, unable to stick being in this house much longer, grabbed her keys, her purse, her phone, and quietly slipped out the front door. It was so much easier not to care when she wasn’t at home. Whether or not that was actually a bad thing was a debate for another day; just now, she just wanted to get drunk somewhere Frankie couldn’t tell her to stop. Somewhere Frankie couldn’t be right about her habits.

She noted with some disdain as she started her car that she paid Frankie and her opinions far more attention that she had ever believed possible. It was with all her might that she pretended she didn’t know why, but she did know. She just didn’t really want to know.

Honestly, why did she have to know the truth about anything? She had been happy not knowing Robert was gay, or that he had been cheating with Sol. She had been happy not knowing about Elaine’s illness and Phil’s role as a carer. She had been happy not knowing she gave a single flying fuck about Frankie Bergstein. The truth was more hassle than it was worth.

She parked and went into the bar; it as early enough that it wasn’t excessively busy, but late enough that it wasn’t deserted, either. It was somewhat comforting that she wasn’t alone in her desire to get drunk at six o’clock on a Thursday.

“Oh, _you’re_ back,” said a familiar voice. “Am I gonna have to carry you out again?”

Grace made a face at Billie, the bartender she had tormented that night her car had been stolen. “Dry vodka martini-”

“Two olives, yeah, yeah,” Billie cut across her. “I can recite that order in my fucking sleep after your last bender.”

Grace rolled her eyes. She had forgotten that Billie and Frankie shared that self-righteous streak. “Stop being dramatic,” grumbled Grace, watching Billie make her drink. However, she did make a mental note not to torture the poor girl again.

“So what’s the problem you need to drink away this time?”

“I thought you were the bartender who didn’t give a damn.”

“Special case.”

Grace took her drink without giving an answer, and partly because she wasn’t entirely sure what the answer was. It was her knee-jerk reaction to life, anyway, to want a drink. Sometimes she wondered if she was as much an alcoholic as Coyote was. But right now, she didn’t care. She wanted a drink, and she had one.

Maybe this was her place in the world. Perhaps it was her role to prop up the bar, to drink more than was reasonable. Not a very helpful role, but a role nonetheless.

After the second drink, Billie began to persist with her interrogation. “You don’t come in here unless you’re dealing with some sort of shit.”

“I’m not allowed a few quiet drinks anymore?” scoffed Grace.

“You can have a few quiet drinks at home.”

“Not without a lecture.”

“Ah, your roommate. Frieda? Freya? Franny?”

“Frankie,” Grace snapped over the rim of her glass. Billie’s failed attempts at recalling Frankie’s name were irritating.

“Frankie,” repeated Billie, her finger in the air as it clicked in her memory. “Frankie doesn’t like you drinking at home?”

Grace glared up at Billie, wondering just when the girl had become so intrusive. “No, she just thinks I drink too much in order to avoid feeling like a real person.”

“You don’t seem the type to give a fuck about anyone’s opinion on your drinking habits,” Billie pointed out.

“I’m not.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I’m avoiding Frankie,” admitted Grace, though grudgingly so.

“Why live with her if you don’t like her?” reasoned Billie. And if it were true that Grace didn’t like Frankie, she would have accepted that question, but she did not dislike Frankie. So again, she gave her bartender a glare. “Oh, so you don’t hate her?” she asked. After a moment, she nodded and conceded, “I can see how that would be a problem for you.”

“What?” Grace demanded.

Billie chuckled. “You don’t like anyone, Grace. People just piss you off. And believe me, I’m with you on that one,” she added. “Imagine your shock and horror when you move in with someone like Frankie and you don’t hate her.”

That was a brutal and yet just analysis of her personality, Grace allowed. It was probably where Brianna got her indiscriminate intolerance for the human race, too, come to think of it.

“So why are you avoiding her?”

Grace didn’t have a simple answer to that question. “I guess,” she began with a huge amount of caution, “I’m avoiding her because I need a drink, I know how she feels about it, and I actually give a damn about her opinion of me.”

“Why do you need a drink?”

Grace remained silent. That, she now knew. She needed a drink because she found herself emotional. She needed it because she was confused. She wasn’t hurting, but she was feeling more than she was comfortable with, and she needed a drink to dull that down a little. What she didn’t need was a therapy session from a kid bartender.

And yet, here she sat.

“Does Frankie know you’re here?”

“No,” replied Grace. “No, I slipped out while she was in her studio.”

“Hmm,” Billie uttered.

Though Grace was morbidly curious as to what that sound meant here, she wasn’t curious enough to ask, and so said nothing other than, “I’ll take another of these,” as she drained her glass. Billie eyed her with an uncharacteristic level of concern, but didn’t pull her up on it.

Grace’s phone rang, as she knew it eventually would, and it was Frankie’s name that came onto the screen, as she knew it would be. “Hello, Frankie,” she answered, deliberately tonelessly.

“Grace, where are you?” Frankie asked, a trace of frantic panic in her voice.

“Calm down,” Grace soothed her. “I’m just at the bar.”

“Who are you with?”

“No-one. Well, unless you count the bartender.”

“You’re drinking alone?!”

“Frankie, I always drink alone,” Grace reminded her, resisting the urge to roll her eyes at Frankie’s fretting. “I’m fine, okay? I’ll be home soon.”

“Oh, alright,” Frankie said. She sounded a little sulky, though Grace could find no rational reason for it. But since when did Frankie Bergstein need a rational reason to sulk? “See you when you get home.”

“See you,” sighed Grace, and she hung up the phone. “I guess this is going to be my last,” she added to Billie, raising her glass slightly.

“You’re not okay to drive.”

“I’ll be fine,” shrugged Grace. “I’ve driven after drinking way more than this before, trust me.”

Billie glowered at her but seemed resigned to the fact Grace was driving home after this drink. Three vodka martinis in two and a half hours wasn’t going to make her unfit to drive. It did cross Grace’s mind, only for a moment, that she had built up a slightly alarming tolerance to alcohol and its effects.

It was almost half-past eight when Grace paid her tab and bade Billie a good night. The sky was darkening, and Grace paused for a moment to take in its pre-darkness colourings. This world was quite a beautiful place, when it wasn’t conspiring to ruin her life.

Two young men walked down the sidewalk, laughing about something or other; Grace tried to remember the last time she ever felt that free. Actually, she wasn’t sure she had ever felt so open that she felt she could laugh her heart out on the street. She smiled to herself as the drew near.

“Hey, lady!” one of the called as they approached.

Wham.

She felt blood pour from her nose. She lost her footing and fell to the ground, thumping her head off the sidewalk when she did. One of them started to rifle through her bag, but a familiar shout from elsewhere distracted them and they ran off.

As she lay there, feeling ever dizzier, tasting her own blood in her mouth, she heard Billie calling 911. “Grace!” she yelled. “Grace, can you hear me?!”

Yes, Grace wanted to answer. Yes, she could hear Billie. Yes, she was still breathing. No, she didn’t want an ambulance. But she couldn’t get the words out. All the energy had been knocked out of her when she fell, and she didn’t have it in her to speak. Her head was splitting with pain, and she feared her nose was broken, and on top of all that, she was already inebriated. All she wanted was to close her eyes and sleep.

The world spun around Grace Hanson. And then it faded into nothing.


	3. Under

“What happened?”

“I don’t know exactly. The police said it was an attempted mugging.”

“Attempted?”

“They didn’t get any of her stuff.”

“But still my mother is lying unconscious in a hospital bed.”

“She’ll pull through, Brianna.”

“Yeah, Mom’s right. It’ll take more than a fudged attempt at a mugging to finish Grace off.”

“Where’s Mallory?”

“She’s on her way. Coyote is watching the kids and she had to give him the run-through of their routine. Mitch is being a dick about being a dad at short notice.”

“Bud!”

“What, Mom? Mallory’s mother is attacked on the street, is unconscious in hospital, and he won’t even try to get off work so she can go to the hospital? Although, Mitch isn’t going to be thrilled when he finds out Coyote is babysitting.”

“It serves him right. You know he actually called her away from a night out with me because one of the babies shit on the bed and he didn’t know what to do about it? That’s what a fifteen-year-old babysitter does, not a father of four.”

“Case in point. He can get them out, no problem, but once they’re out, he doesn’t know what to do.”

Oh, Grace Hanson didn’t have the energy to listen to this. Mitch needed a swift kick up the ass and they all knew it. She didn’t want to hear about his most recent offences.

So she tuned them out and drifted back to wherever she had been before he started to hear that conversation. And as for what happened…well, all she could recall was that she had hit the ground, and that she had been drinking, and that Billie had called for an ambulance. Beyond that, it was a mystery to her.

She didn’t even want to try and remember what had happened to her. The last thing she could remember before this had happened was that she had been in the bar, and Billie was being unusually talkative.

Her mind didn’t even want to go to that conversation.

No, Grace’s mind wanted to be ever-so-helpful and stick on that night a couple of weeks back, when she had lost her ability to sleep and eventually fallen asleep on the couch. She remembered how emotional, how _full_ she had felt that night. When did she become capable of acknowledging her own feelings like that?

And yet, the next morning, she had reverted back to her normal self – the Grace Hanson who was willing to ply herself with alcohol to soften the blow of an emotional conversation, no matter how early in the morning it was.

There had been times she flirted with the notion that she had a problem with alcohol. There had also been times she had wondered if she had become depressed. But she couldn’t be depressed. Everything had resolved itself, for the most part. Her husband was remarried, and she had a usually content home with the woman who had somehow become her best friend.

But didn’t Brianna take Zoloft?

Brianna Hanson, the epitome of confidence, competence and comfort, took anti-depressants on a regular basis.

But Grace was not Brianna. Grace elected to empty herself of emotion. Grace went to great lengths to avoid feeling things; usually, she ended up staring into the bottom of an empty bottle. The idea of feeling was terrifying to her, so she dampened it with alcohol and – that one time – pot. Because, to feel what she felt on that night she poured her heart out onto a piece of paper every single day would probably kill her in under a week. As much as she teased Frankie, she admired that woman’s courage; to feel as Frankie felt took guts and heart and brains that Grace simply couldn’t find.

This was a corner she had not expected to find herself backed into. She sensed the beginnings of love and fear stirring in the pit of her stomach, and all the while she was a prisoner to her own refusal to experience life the way it was meant to be experienced. It had never bothered her before, but now she was both the prisoner and the gaoler, and both were wrestling for control of the keys to the cell.

 _Oh, now you’ve done it_ , she berated herself. _Now you wanna cry because it’s all gone to shit and you’re letting it hurt. Stop being such a coward._

“Dad and Robert are here. You want me to talk to them, Mom?”

“No, it’s okay. You know what your father’s like. And Grace calls _me_ a catastrophist.”

“I need caffeine. Well, actually, I’d prefer Scotch right now, but I think drinking at my mother’s sickbed would be frowned upon.”

“I’ll get you a coffee.”

“No, no, Budlas. I also need to walk, otherwise I’m going to lose all feeling in my legs. You want a coffee?”

“Yeah, please. I’ll stay here with your mom, just in case anything changes, okay?”

Jesus Christ, when did they start being so nice to each other? And when did Frankie stop being useless in these situations? Where was the bickering, the arguing over who should be here and who had to leave?

“Hey, Bud. Sorry it took me so long to get here. Mitch-”

“Don’t worry, Mal. It’s not your fault. How did Coyote take to babysitting?

“You know, he’s actually great with them. I am pleasantly surprised.”

“Of course he’s great with them. He’s practically one of them.”

“How’s Mom?”

“The doctor says there’s no reason for her not to wake up. She did hit her head but the scan came back clear. He thinks she’ll have a concussion but apart from that and the busted nose, she should be okay.”

“If there’s no reason for her not to wake up then why isn’t she awake?”

“Apparently everyone takes it at their own pace? I don’t know.”

“Maybe she doesn’t _want_ to wake up.”

“Of course she wants to wake up. Why wouldn’t she?”

“I don’t know. I guess she just hasn’t been happy recently. Well, it’s not that she hasn’t been happy. She’s just not been herself.”

The floodgates opened and the waters surged through her. To hear from Mallory that she had not been alright just made it real, and to know that she wasn’t imagining this doubt and fear was overwhelming.

She loved her children and her grandchildren. She loved Frankie, and her children. She even loved Robert, and she even loved Sol. And they were all here, except for Coyote, who was absent so that Mallory could be here.

There was a fear creeping through her that she didn’t deserve such love. Hadn’t Brianna once told her that she had never felt unconditionally loved by Grace? So what had Grace done to deserve this degree of loyalty, affection and care?

“Hey, Mal, you’re here! Here you go, Budlas.”

“Thank you, Brianna-donna-ding-dong.”

“How is Dad? How is Frankie?”

“Dad is pretending he’s not terrified. Frankie is being a rock. Weird, I know.”

“What about Sol?”

“Sol is…well, he’s Sol.”

“Are _you_ okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Mitch won’t be when I catch him, though. I’ll be wearing his balls as earrings.”

“It’s fine. He’s working and-”

“And he’s not the only gynaecologist at the hospital. Brianna is right, Mal. He’d expect you to drop everything if it was his mother who got mugged.”

It was coming, and there was nothing Grace could do to stop it. _Get a grip. You only got a bump to the head. Stop feeling sorry for yourself._

But it wasn’t because she felt sorry for herself. It was because she was feeling everything, with nothing to distract her and nothing to take the edge off. The fear smothered her. The confusion battered her. The love filled her heart until it broke open and it all spilled out. The pressure on her chest was massive, and she was finding it harder to contain. She was too tired to wake up but too alive to stay under.

She didn’t really know what it was that left her so open. Normally, every inch of her was sealed and secured to avoid such an influx of the things that demanded to be borne. What did seep in, she could drink back into oblivion.

But she couldn’t, because she was stuck here in a hospital bed, and she had no choice anymore. Running away, drinking it away, wasn’t an option at the moment. The alternative was an immense shock to the system – one she had managed to write out of her heart before it had enveloped her, the last time she had allowed such nonsense to fill her up.

There was no freedom in this. It was suffocating her.

“Look! She’s crying!”

“Holy fuck! Should we get the doctor? Bud, go get the doctor!”

“Mom? Mom, it’s Mallory. Can you hear me?”

 _Yes, I can hear you, Mal_ , Grace thought, wishing the words could be heard by the people she needed to hear them.

“Mrs. Hanson?”

Her eyelids were lifted, and she caught a brief glimpse of a doctor, though it was marred by her tears, before he invaded her vision with his torch.

“I think your mother is regaining consciousness.”

_Oh, God, do I have to?_

“Frankie! Dad! Sol! Get in here!”

_Oh, please, no, Brianna, I don’t need an audience. Especially if I’m crying, for God’s sake!_

“Grace?!”

_Frankie, if you make a big deal out of this, so help me, I’ll-_

“Why is she crying, doctor?”

“She must be regaining consciousness. Whatever she’s feeling, she must be aware of it at some level. Like when you have a powerful dream or nightmare, and when you wake up, you’re already crying.”

“So she’s okay?”

“I’d say so, Mr. Hanson, yes.”

_I’m not okay! I don’t want you seeing me cry, and I don’t want awkward questions, either!_

Grace could feel the tears falling down her face now. It was instinct to wipe them away, but her arms felt too heavy to reach her face, and her face was sore enough that she wasn’t very sure she wanted to touch it. She felt helplessly ruled by her emotions. She was caught under a waterfall, the mess of sentiment rushing over her, and it was all she could do to remember she wasn’t drowning.

To drown in this would be the ultimate weakness, particularly if she were to drown in front of her family. That could never happen.

But as her mind ran into overdrive once more, she saw a fist fly towards her out of nowhere, and she felt that pain in her face, and she wondered if she would ever be able to forget it now that she had remembered it. She could feel the cold ground against her cheek, and Billie’s hand shaking her shoulder.

It was all black. Empty and yet so heavy.

The world was spinning around her. She sensed as much, despite not being able to see it. Or was the world standing still while she spun?

And to add to her fear, when she managed to wrench her eyes open, she couldn’t see through the water in them.

“It’s okay, Grace,” said Frankie’s familiar voice. “Robert, give me your handkerchief.” Within a moment, a piece of soft fabric was drying her eyes; she could finally see the brilliant yet dysfunctional family around her, with Frankie’s face front and centre. Behind her stood Bud, Mallory and Brianna. Robert and Sol were standing at the foot of the bed, and the doctor was standing on the otherwise clear side of the bed. It crossed Grace’s mind that more people than were strictly allowed were at her bedside.

“Brianna,” Grace said, noticing her voice was croaky.

“Yes, Mom?”

“I’m not sure Mitch’s balls are big enough to make decent earrings.”

Everyone laughed, even the doctor. It was the best way to divert attention from the fact that, inside, she was breaking down under the weight of everything she didn’t know how to process. She just had to do what she did best, and push it under again.


	4. Poking and Prodding

“Grace,” Frankie sighed, “you know the doctor won’t discharge you unless you eat something.”

“I’m not hungry,” protested Grace, pushing her food around her plate, just as she would have told Mallory and Brianna off for doing decades before.

She was hungry. However, anything she put in her mouth, she struggled to swallow; she desperately wanted to spit out anything solid that passed her lips. The sensation was awful. Quite frankly, she would rather have starved than make another attempt to force herself to eat.

Grace could feel Frankie’s gaze burn straight through her, probably reading her like an open book, as she so often seemed to do. “You eat it,” Grace said.

“But it’s your lunch!”

“Frankie, damn it, just eat it, tell the doctor I ate it, and I can get out of this godforsaken place!”

“I’m not eating meat, Grace.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Grace grumbled; she’d forgotten Frankie was a vegetarian. “Throw it in a bin, then.”

“Grace…”

“Do you really think I’m going to have any better an appetite in here than I am in my own home? Two days I’ve been here, Frankie – it’s little wonder I don’t want anything to eat!”

Frankie was eyeing her with suspicion, but there was something else in that look, and it unnerved Grace more than any level of suspicion from Frankie ever could. It was a look tainted with what Grace would have previously brushed off as condescension, or pity, but now recognised as concern.

“You already…” Frankie began, but she hesitated. Frankie never was one to hesitate.

“What?” Grace demanded; she was surprised by how harsh she sounded. Did she always come across as so abrupt?

Frankie, normally quite bold in her statements, continued to falter in whatever it was she had to say. “Well, you know, I joke about it but…”

“But what?!”

“You and…and food,” she proceeded with clear caution.

Grace froze. And then she glared, because she did not know what else to do with that.

“When you feel like shit, you don’t eat properly. In fact, you drink instead, which is way worse. I worry about you and your need for control, especially when you’re depressed.”

“Christ, don’t say _that_ to the doctor, or I’ll never get out of here!” Grace exclaimed. She could just see Frankie telling the doctor Grace was going to go home, have a bottle of vodka and an apple to last her a whole weekend. “And I am _not_ depressed! I’m pissed off because a couple of delinquents hospitalised me!”

Grace rolled her eyes and got out of bed, picked up the plate and snuck out the door, her body aching as she moved. It turned out falling onto the cold, hard sidewalk did not agree with her muscles. In all honesty, she was probably lucky not to have broken any bones. She looked both ways to be sure the coast was clear, and scraped the food into the bin.

When she returned to the room, Frankie appeared mutinous.

“Don’t give me that look,” snapped Grace, climbing back into bed as she clattered the plate back onto the table. “I’ll eat something when I get home.”

“Damn straight,” Frankie retorted. It was rare to see a glaze so steely in those eyes, like she thought she was fighting for something. “I should tell the doctor you did that.”

“But you won’t.”

If Grace was sure of anything, it was that Frankie would not rat her out to the doctor. As righteous and infuriating as Frankie was, that was where she would draw the line. Or, at least, that was where Grace hoped Frankie drew the line. At present, Frankie was shooting her a look that plainly said, “Just you fucking try me.”

Why was Frankie being like this? Why was she being so…overprotective? What was it to her if Grace didn’t want to eat, or wanted to drink herself stupid, or wanted to lie to the doctor? It was nothing to do with Frankie. She didn’t need to involve herself like this.

And yet, there she sat in the bedside chair, her head resting in her hand, watching with intent. She had barely left in the past two days. She’d spent more time here than Grace’s own daughters. Not that Grace could blame Mallory and Brianna – one had kids to look after and the other had a business to run. She wasn’t a complete narcissist. But she couldn’t understand why Frankie was sticking to her like a tattoo. Hopefully a temporary tattoo, though after all this time, Grace’s hope of that was fading with every passing day.

“Grace, I’m worried.”

“Don’t be,” Grace answered, flashing what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “I’m fine. A couple of bruises, a mild concussion and dented pride, like the doctor said this morning.”

Frankie, it was clear, was biting her tongue. 

* * *

 

It was later that day, after a couple of minor lies to the doctor, that Robert drove Grace home. “Why isn’t Frankie driving you? She hasn’t left your side the entire time you were in there,” Robert said as they turned out of the hospital car park.

“Oh, she’s on her moral high ground,” Grace rolled her eyes.

“Why?” Robert asked. He briefly looked around at Grace, his face betraying his worry; though Frankie was renowned for her ability to strop of principle, she didn’t do it without her own reasons. “Grace?”

And, there and then, the exhaustion, frustration, anger, and overwhelming sorrow took her over. She burst into tears, and she couldn’t be quiet about it.

“Grace?! Fuck!” Robert exclaimed. He pulled into the nearest parking spot, which happened to be right outside one of Sol’s favourite restaurants. “What’s wrong?”

Grace couldn’t answer. She thought of all Frankie had said to her, even while she had bitten her tongue for the two hours she stayed after Grace threw her lunch in the bin. The remarks about being worried for her, and the idea that she might not have the best relationships with food and alcohol, and that she was depressed. She had toyed with the notion that she had depressive tendencies, that she relied on alcohol too heavily, but she had never really let it go beyond that, and she had not had Frankie, in all seriousness, tell her she was depressed before.

And how could she tell Robert any of this? He wasn’t her husband anymore; she was no longer his problem. But he was rubbing her shoulder with a gentle touch, trying to comfort her…taking her on as his problem, even though he was not obligated to.

Robert sighed quietly. He never was much of a talker. Wasn’t much of a listener, either. But he was trying, at least, to be a relief to her, and that was more than she ever expected of him.

Grace wrestled for control of her emotions, but it eluded her. Every time she thought she had it tight in her hands, another urge to cry ripped through her, and she could do nothing but submit to it. She didn’t have it in her to fight it down. That would take the last ounce of energy she didn’t even possess.

And Robert, poor Robert, so clearly did not know what to do with her. How could he, when she didn’t have the first clue herself?

“I’m sorry,” murmured Grace, appalled by her cracked voice. “I shouldn’t-”

“Don’t be silly, love,” Robert told her, his voice soft and kind as he rubbed her back. “You’ve had a massive shock. I’m not sure I’d do so well if someone tried to mug me.”

That only made Grace lean forward and cry harder, her face in her hands. This was very little to do with being attacked. This was more to do with the way she was, who she was. She felt like this before being attacked. It had only magnified what already existed. Hurtled her faster down the road she already walked.

Grace tried to steady her breathing, to pull herself back into the realms of normality. A hardened knot had formed in her chest, making it unpleasant to breathe.

“Grace, calm down,” warned Robert.

“Calm down?!” snapped Grace. “Seriously?!”

“Okay, sorry, that was the wrong thing to say,” he conceded, one hand in the air. “Try and breathe.” He pulled her by the shoulders until her back was straight. “Come on. In and out.”

Loathe as she was to take any advice from him, she did as he said and pulled the air in and out of her body, trying to do it slowly and steadily. And it came back. Her physical equilibrium came back, and her lungs were pumping air in and out like they were supposed to do. “That’s it,” he encouraged her. “You’re okay.”

Now, that almost made her laugh. “Do I look okay, Robert?”

“What do you need from me?”

Grace stared at him. It turned out he was a much better friend than he ever was a husband. “I don’t need anything,” she recovered herself with a smile, “except for you to take me home, where I can go to sleep in my own bed.”

That was that. She had snapped back into her rightful place. It was time to act like she knew what she was doing. She could do this. She could pretend she was fine. She’d been doing it years now, hadn’t she?

“I know that face,” grumbled Robert, though he started the car anyway.

“What face?”

“The smile you put on to keep _that_ in,” he gestured wildly at the ghost of her outburst, “and keep _us_ all out.”

But that, thankfully, was all he said on the matter as they drove back to the beach house. She didn’t think she could bear to let him in. She didn’t think she could bear to let any of them in, for the very simple reason that they cared. If they cared, then it meant they had the ability to poke around and open her up, and she didn’t want that at all. One falter in her ex-husband’s passenger seat did not mean she wanted her family to start prodding around at what was better left alone. It meant she had a moment of weakness, and it wasn’t one she wanted to repeat in a hurry.

Robert carried her overnight bag into the house, shouting, “Anybody home?” as they crossed the threshold. “I have our patient!”

Grace said nothing. Silence was her best friend today, it seemed.

Frankie crossed the living room to the door and took the bag from Robert. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming home? I could have picked you up!” she rounded on Grace.

Grace didn’t really have an answer that wasn’t going to hurt Frankie’s feelings. The reason she had asked Robert rather than Frankie was that she was terrified Frankie was going to give her another talk on her feelings about Grace’s self-care. She glanced at Robert – she hadn’t actually told him she hadn’t asked Frankie. She had deliberately let him draw his own conclusions from the little she had said about it.

“Oh, I went to visit just as the doctor was telling Grace she could go home,” lied Robert. “It seemed silly to call you out when I was there with the car already.” Grace looked around at him, trying not to give away her surprise at his lie.

“Oh,” said Frankie, seemingly less put out. “Oh, that does make more sense. Thank you, Robert. It’s much appreciated.”

“You are very welcome,” he smiled. “Now, could you do me a huge favour and take Grace’s bag to her room? I’m not sure either of us has the energy to do it ourselves.”

“Of course.” Frankie disappeared up the stairs.

Robert turned to Grace. “What the _hell_ is going on, Grace? You didn’t tell her you were getting out?” he hissed at her.

“I assumed she figured it out for herself. She was there when the doctor said I could go home if I ate lunch and kept it down.”

He glared at her, with a look she had seen only a few times in the past forty years. It was the look that told her Robert could see straight through her lies. “I’m worried about you,” he admitted.

“Oh, isn’t everyone?” Grace scoffed; her patience was running thin. “I need a drink,” she added, making her way into the kitchen. “I’d offer you one but you’re driving.”

“Grace!” he berated her. He snatched the bottle from her hand. “You are quite literally an hour out of hospital and you’re drinking? Are you mad?!”

Grace laughed. “Why, yes, perhaps I am.” She reached out to grab the bottle back but he pulled it away from her grasp.

Frankie’s footsteps drew near as she came back down the stairs. Grace glared at Robert, but at the same time, she silently pleaded with him not to make a scene. All she needed was Frankie on her back. She would surely feel vindicated if she found out Robert was stopping her from opening a bottle of wine. “Thank you for the wine, Grace,” he said, his stare meeting hers. “There was no need, but I’m sure Sol and I will enjoy it with dinner tonight.”

“Please do,” Grace beamed through gritted teeth. “It goes best with chicken, I find.”

“Thanks for the tip,” he replied. Grace was painfully aware that Frankie was watching them, especially so when Robert turned to address her directly. “Frankie, Grace has painkillers she has to take every four hours. Just so you know.”

“Thanks,” Frankie said; she looked vaguely bewildered.

Robert hugged Grace and whispered into her ear, “If you need Sol and me, you know where we are.” He released her and left the house, clapping Frankie’s arm on the way past.

Grace sighed and followed until she got to the stairs. “I’m going to bed,” she told Frankie. “I need a nap.”


	5. Ivy

When Grace woke up at nine that night, she felt hungover, despite having had nothing alcoholic to drink. Perhaps it was the painkillers. Perhaps it was the pain. Perhaps it was just her.

She hauled herself out of bed and searched through her overnight bag for the prescription of painkillers she had got from the hospital; she had missed her dose by nearly three hours. She was tempted to just miss this one altogether, go back to bed and continue in the morning. There was no motivation to ease her own physical pain. It wasn’t that she didn’t care about it, but she just didn’t see the point of trying to stop the pain.

But, out of her unrelenting common sense, she took them anyway.

Briefly, she thought of taking the whole bottle. How nice it would be, not to have to make so much effort every day.

To just…stop.

Again, out of common sense, Grace put the pill bottle out of her sight and walked out of the room. Nothing good ever came of lingering within reach of temptation. She stood in the half-light of the living room, looking around her. The television was playing some documentary while Frankie lay on the sofa, with the patio doors wide open. Grace rolled her eyes; she crossed the room on the pads of her bare feet and silently closed them.

When she turned around, she saw Frankie and, despite the woman’s usual draping and heavy-looking attire, she looked cold. So Grace pulled the blanket off the back of the sofa and covered Frankie’s body. She stirred but, to Grace’s great relief, did not wake.

Her back and shoulders aching, Grace sat herself down in an armchair. The documentary played on, the words not reaching her brain, and leaving her without leaving any meaning. She wondered if Frankie had been enjoying it before she fell asleep. Grace kept it on only for the dim light it provided.

Frankie slept with such peace on her face. Like she had all the answers, and the ability to accept them. Or she just didn’t care enough to get worked up.

But she did get worked up, didn’t she? Today, she was positively riled by Grace’s behaviour. Something about Grace infuriated Frankie, but there wasn’t much Grace could do to prevent it. She was way beyond being able to change her ways. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to change her ways. Pressing self-destruct and having done with the whole thing was far more appealing. Her mind and gaze drifted back to the painkillers upstairs. How easy would that be?

“Grace…” murmured Frankie. Grace looked over at Frankie; she was still sleeping.

Grace shook her head to herself. She headed to the kitchen and took a bottle of vodka into her hands. She unscrewed the top and took a swig; when did vodka stop burning her throat?

She stood there in silence, listening to the mind-numbing string of sounds from the television. She took another mouthful and set the bottle down on the countertop, careful not to thump it down and wake Frankie. That was the last thing she needed.

With another swig, she wondered how she, Grace Hanson, had reached a point where she thought suicide was an option. She had so vehemently objected to Babe doing it, and Babe had given a much better reason for wanting to end her life. She’d said it was up to God to choose when to take a person from the Earth. And she had meant it. But Babe’s need had far outweighed God’s wishes. What was Grace’s excuse? Did she even have one?

She wasn’t dying. She wasn’t, to her knowledge, riddled with cancer as Babe was. But this was not normal unhappiness. She had experienced human sadness far too many times to mistake it. Sadness was an emotion. It was there to be felt, and then she moved on from it once she learned from it. But this…this was not that. They were not even remotely the same.

A hand took her wrist and another took the bottle from her; she startled, having heard no sign of movement. “Grace,” Frankie said, her voice low, “Grace, what are you doing?”

Grace stared straight ahead, unable to look around at Frankie. She couldn’t face the prospect of seeing what inevitably would be written on Frankie’s face: concern, care and affection, none of which were deserved.

“Come on,” Frankie sighed. “Bed for you, young lady.”

“I don’t want to go to bed.”

“Why not?”

“I’ve already slept.”

“Sleep some more. You’ve had a rough couple of days, and you’re on meds, and you’ve had a drink,” she reminded Grace, not that Grace actually needed reminding. Drinking with the painkillers may not have been her wisest move to date.

“Why are you reasoning with me?”

Frankie didn’t answer. Instead, she wandered off and turned on the light, and turned off the television. She then grabbed Grace by the arm and tried to pull her towards the stairs. “Cut it out, Frankie, I said I don’t want to go to bed!” Grace snapped.

Frankie pulled again. “Grace, don’t make this difficult.”

Grace violently shook Frankie off; she stumbled backwards, and shot Grace a look of utter confusion and hurt. It was a look Grace struggled to see, for it was the evidence that everywhere she turned, she caused a problem. She caused pain. To Frankie, to her daughters, to Frankie’s sons, to Robert and Sol, to Jacob…really, they were all better off without her.

The pain was wrapping around her like ivy, and when it reached her chest, she both hoped and feared she would never breathe again.

Under normal circumstances, Grace would have stalked upstairs to her bedroom, but she didn’t want to be the one to prove Frankie right by going to bed. “What is with you? You’ve been acting crazy since…” Frankie trailed away. She didn’t finish her sentence.

“Crazy. Thanks,” Grace shot at her.

“That’s not what I meant. Damn my mouth and its poor relationship with my brain!” exclaimed Frankie. “I meant out of the ordinary, not actual crazy person crazy. I do not think you’re a crazy person!”

“I think you’ve made yourself perfectly plain, thank you.”

To acknowledge that she knew exactly what Frankie had meant would be to give her an opportunity to keep up the Spanish Inquisition; it was far better to fall out with Frankie than endure her relentless efforts to make Grace open up. Grace had done enough opening up today, with Robert Hanson, of all people.

The ivy crept up to her waist, her muscles tightening without her say-so.

“Go to bed, Frankie.”

“I’m not tired.”

“You were passed out on the couch, for Christ’s sakes!”

It was late, and Frankie was perfectly entitled to be tired. And ordinarily, she would have been in her studio, having succumbed to it. But she wasn’t. Instead she was here, with Grace’s bottle of alcohol in her hands, arguing that she wasn’t tired.

Frankie approached, her gait slow and steady, until there were only inches between them. “What’s with you?”

“What’s with _you_?!” retorted Grace. “Why can’t you leave me to my own devices?”

“Because this is your device!” Frankie cried, shaking the bottle in front of Grace’s face. “I’m not going to watch you drink yourself into your grave!”

“Who’s making you watch?”

The words had left her mouth before she could catch them.

The ivy tied itself around the bottom of her ribcage.

Frankie was quite clearly shocked. “What? What does that mean?!”

“It doesn’t mean anything,” sighed Grace. “I was just shooting my mouth off, as per usual.”

But it didn’t convince Frankie.

The ivy spread, edging up into her chest, until it felt tight and constricted, just as it had done in the car with Robert that afternoon. It was all she could do to force air in and out of her lungs; after all, the only thing worse than Robert seeing that would be for Frankie to see it. It was different when it was brought on by claustrophobia or by Robert. It was explicable. But this was not. This was foolish. There was no reasoning behind it. No way to explain it beyond the fact it was stupid. The only even remotely possible explanation Grace could find was that she was feeling emotion more intensely than she was used to, simply could not handle it.

And while she had been lost in her reverie, in trying to control her breathing, she had failed to react to Frankie, who had taken her into an embrace.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“You can’t push me away, Grace. I know what you’re trying to do, and it won’t work,” Frankie told her. “We live together, for fuck’s sake.”

“Frankie, stop!” Grace shouted, pulling herself away rather than push Frankie again. “I know what you’re trying to do, and I appreciate it. Really, I do. You’re trying to make me feel better, and I know that, but you don’t need to. I’m okay.”

Bullshitting Frankie rarely worked. Grace didn’t really know why she had expected it to do any good now when it only ever caused problems in the past. Intellectually, she knew she must have looked far from okay, and she knew Frankie had just caught her drinking the day she got of hospital, but she really just wanted Frankie to swallow the bullshit and walk away.

Well, about ninety percent of her wanted Frankie to back off.

The remaining ten percent, the part forcing the ivy around her airways, wanted to scream at Frankie that all was not well. That little part of her that had crumbled before Robert’s very eyes wanted to let Frankie in, just for the relief of letting some of this poison out. And that little part, the one part in ten, screamed so loudly that the other nine parts struggled to ignore it.

So the ten percent tightened the ivy.

She fought back, because breaking down in front of Frankie was a completely different thing to breaking down in front of Robert. That man had lived with her for forty years and did nothing to help her while this crept up on her. The least he could do was pull over and let her get the overflow out before returning to Frankie, who most definitely did not deserve this.

Nobody deserved to have to hear about this. Not even Robert.

“Grace, my hand,” Frankie said. Grace looked down to find her knuckles white around Frankie’s hand. “You’re hurting me.”

Grace loosened her grip and tore her hand away, wondering how she had come to be holding Frankie by the hand in the first place.

The ivy held down her tongue. It stripped her of the ability to speak.

All she could do was put her hand in Frankie’s hair, kiss her forehead and walk away upstairs, where, almost hilariously, Frankie had wanted her to go in the first place. How was it that Frankie always managed to get her own way in the end? If it weren’t so maddening to live with, it would have been amusing.

On the edge of the bed, Grace sat with her head in her hands. The ivy twisted around her throat, down to her stomach, squeezing until she couldn’t hold her stomach contents down any longer. She hurtled into the bathroom and vomited into the toilet; Grace leaned her head against the cistern and fought back the tears. They could only make this worse.

Grace stood up, wiped her mouth and brushed her teeth. She hated nothing more than the taste of bile in her mouth, and no matter how much she hated herself, that was where she drew the line.

She changed into her pyjamas and crawled into bed, though she didn’t hold out much hope for sleep to come to her, and she wasn’t about to spend all night chasing it. She didn’t have the strength to do that. Instead, she allowed the ivy to bind her to the bed and stared into the darkness.


End file.
